Synopsis for
"Prison Break" Scylla (2008)

If you were looking for a two hour hors d'oeuvre of Prison Break, followed by frenzied elephants parading on the stage of the Xcel Energy Center Minnesota, well . . . at least you got the first half of your Monday. It's time for Season 4, resplendent with tons and tons of surprises we all saw coming.

The show begins with a mini catch-up session from hero Michael Scofield, who tells us via voice-over that: he escaped the Sona prison in Panama with help from the Company (evil corporate/government conglomerate that runs the world), knows the system will never give him or his erstwhile wrongfully imprisoned brother Lincoln Burrows any justice and is therefore now seeking revenge against the Company and any employees responsible for killing Sara Tancredi, or "the only woman I've ever loved." Phew.

We start in L.A. with Whistler, Gretchen and Mahone planning the purchase of the "Scylla," what we eventually learn is the Company's dirty secrets on one iPhone-sized card. They get the Scylla, but not before Whistler makes a copy and Michael shows up pointing a gun at Gretchen. Just before Michael pulls the trigger (yeah, right) Gretchen tells him - prepare not to be shocked - that Sara is still alive and that Gretchen faked her death using a severed cadaver head. Gretchen and Whistler flee the scene together with Michael is left slack-jawed on the sidewalk. Gretchen finds out from the Company boss that the Scylla/iPhone has been duplicated and Whistler has made off with the original. The Company is super-mad, so out comes super-goon Wyatt who points a gun at Gretchen, presumably to kill her (yeah, right) as the scene changes.

Michael talks to brother Lincoln Burrows (loving life down in Panama City with L.J. and Sofia), learning that rather conveniently Sona has burned down and nobody knows the whereabouts of Bellick, T-Bag or Sucre - who somehow ended up at the prison as well. Sigh.

Cut to Bellick and Sucre, who fall out of a shady Van 'O Escapees and are promptly picked up by Bellick's mom. Following a tip from Europeangoldfinch.com (which has become Prison Break's Google) Michael head to the Santa Monica pier where he meets Mahone. Mahone details Scylla, and tells Michael that Whistler knows about Sara but requires a face-to-face.

The threesome meet in a dark alley, where Whistler shows Scylla to Michael and says all that is left to bring down the Company is breaking (that's right, more breaking) into a secure facility. Whistler thinks Sara might be in Chicago and the consensus is that within a week the Company can be taken down and nobody will have to run anymore. Given such promising news, the back of Whistler's head is forced to immediately explode as the result of a long-range gun shot. Michael and Mahone scatter and Wyatt appears to calmly take Scylla from Whistler's jacket.

Chilling in Panama City, T-Bag tells an upstanding young woman that he must leave her bed with two Panamanian dudes in a station wagon to chase Michael. The Company higher-up from earlier hands Scylla off to another old guy before telling Wyatt it's "time to clean-up now," meaning everyone we're supposed to like on the show is going to die.

Mahone talks to ex-wife Pam on the phone and the two sound like they're in love again and are going to get back together. Uh-oh. Incarceration-magnet Lincoln ends up surrendering to Panamanian police after killing a Company thug with the would-be assassin's own gun. Cut to Pam excitedly opening her front door, only to find an all-business Wyatt staring back at her.

Michael is in Chicago, where he phones Bruce Bennett, a former buddy of Sara's father. Before Bennett can answer the million-dollar question ("Is she alive?") Chicago's Finest show up to haul Michael off to jail.

Michael is then questioned by Michael Rapaport, who I'm fairly certain is a humanities teacher at Winslow High School near Boston. Regardless, Rapaport is now calling himself Donald Self, a special agent for Homeland Security. Self says Whistler had been working for him, trying to secure Scylla for the feds. If Michael wants to walk away from it all (yeah, right) and keep himself and Lincoln out of prison, he has to help the feds get their hands on Scylla. Self tells Michael that his father spent the last five years of his life trying to acquire Scylla.

Mahone arrives at Pam's house, now a crime scene, as cops tell him horrifyingly "you don't want to go in there." Sucre arrives at a hospital (wha?), meets his newborn daughter for the first time, and is promptly set-up by one of Maricruz's friends, landing both he and Bellick in the slammer. Self tells Michael and Lincoln of the precarious legal situations of Sucre, Bellick and Mahone and tells them they not only will have to steal the Scylla, but then break into Company headquarters in L.A. to unlock the card's contents. Self says a few positive things about the brothers' father and it seems he's one of the good guys, but before he can talk them into anything their bail gets posted by Bennett.

Bennett takes them to a house containing - prepare not to be surprised - one very much alive Sara Tancredi. Michael and Sara "catch-up," as Lincoln goes through the file Self left them and begins to fall in love with their father's mission. We learn at this point that Sara was tortured during her imprisonment.

Wyatt fires a shot through the window, sending the trio on the run. This apparently seals the deal: Michael and Lincoln are "in" for the Scylla mission, and are bringing Sara with them. Surprise, surprise, the mission will also include Sucre, Mahone and Bellick and, just as the group realizes it may need the bird book down the line, we find out bird book-possessor T-Bag has been robbed and left for dead in the desert with a portly local.

After Michael has all-night laser surgery to remove his tattoos (seriously), the sextet gets on a C-130 with Self. They quickly get a new partner, as we're introduced to Roland Glenn, a tech nerd also working off his crime. Mahone helps them find the current location of Scylla, a heavily guarded private home that is impossible to break into (yeah, right). The plan becomes to copy the card using an illegal wireless information-grabber Glenn has designed (also iPhone sized). They must get Glenn's device within a few feet of the Scylla for two minutes to extract its contents. Heightening the sense of urgency is a cryptic meeting between the Company administrators which gives us the impression an extra-evil plan is in the works that will result in the death of 10,000 people.

The show then pauses for an interlude of implied cannibalism (seriously), as T-Bag takes advantage of his buddy accidentally busting his head open on a rock and drags the corpse towards a camp fire as the scene closes. Sara goes through the Scylla file and learns that the name has connections Homer's "Oydssey". According to the story, in order for Odysseus to defeat a monster named Scylla it will require the sacrifice of exactly six of his men.

After even more torturing (this guy doesn't play around), Wyatt learns that the brothers' cover of being super-max prison is BS, and that Bennett has helped them along the way. After one failed attempt, the group plants Glenn's wireless thingy in a housekeeper's purse and get her to spend the requisite few minutes near Scylla by faking a call from the alarm company. T-Bag gets rescued by two guys on ATV riders, but not before a joke about his eating "some bad Mexican" is made.

Lo and behold, the maid ends up leaving Glenn's device in her boss' office, and to avoid discovery of their mission the group must now break into the house they earlier decided could not be broken into. Luckily Michael thinks really hard for a few hours and comes up with a plan. They grab it and get away scot-free, as two cutaways show us:

1. Bennett is starting to get some serious torturing from Wyatt and...

2. T-Bag has figured out the bird book (whose numbers led to an important-looking envelope in a bus station deposit box) and is on his way to L.A.

The final "surprises" are that what the group has recovered is just one-sixth of the total Scylla (one iPhone down, five more to go) and Wyatt has Gretchen in his custody and has been starve-torturing the bejesus out of her.

Oh, and Michael's nose has begun to bleed in a very random and very ominous way.